Watt inclined his weight onto his toes and the board leapt forward, responding to the command. He tried to make it go faster, but it bucked upward. He cursed under his breath.
Nadia, can you drive? Nadia obediently took over the hoverboard’s directional system, pushing the board to max speed as it skimmed forward, just centimeters above the uneven surface of the ground.
The wind tore at his hair and the fabric of his tux, stinging Watt’s eyes so hard that he was forced to close them, trusting everything to Nadia, but it wouldn’t be the first time. He held his breath and crouched lower on the board, letting his fingers trace blindly along its aerodynamic surface.
Finally, it came to a stop and Watt half tumbled off. There she was—Leda, looking like some strange version of herself, crumpled unnaturally on the sand. Her white dress fanned around her like an angel’s wings, a sharp contrast to her smooth dark skin. Her legs were already partially submerged in the rising tide of the ocean.
Oh god, oh god, he thought, scrambling down to pull Leda into his arms; and then his heart leapt with joy, because she was shivering, and that at least meant she was alive.
“Why is she freezing like this?” he said aloud, rubbing his hands on Leda’s bare shoulders to create some friction, but her head tipped back alarmingly, forcing him to cradle it in one hand. “Is it the ocean?” He trailed one hand in the water, but it was a pleasant, tropical lukewarm, just as he’d expected.
“I believe she’s taken some drugs,” Nadia was saying. “I would need a med-bot to do a full exam, but whatever they are, they’ve severely constricted her arteries. She’s not getting any blood to her extremities.”
Watt shrugged off his tux jacket and wrapped it around Leda like a cocoon. He cradled Leda in his arms and began to carry her back to the hoverboard, one hand still placed carefully behind her neck and the other under her knees. He managed to settle her sloppily onto the board, curling her on her side and then strapping her down with the emergency safety cord.
“Nadia,” he said hoarsely, “how are we going to get her back?”
“We’ll smuggle her into the hotel on the hover. Leave that part to me.”
Into Watt’s mind came the sudden realization that he and Nadia had gotten it all wrong. He’d set out to change Leda’s opinion of him, but he was the one whose mind had ended up changing, about her.
What was it she’d said all those weeks ago? “We’re the same, Watt, you and me.” And she’d been right. He knew Leda, not just physically but mentally, emotionally—hell, he might know her better than he knew anyone else in his life. She was maddening and stubborn and tormented and deeply flawed, but so was he, and maybe the important thing wasn’t finding someone without flaws, but just someone whose flaws complemented your own.
The hoverboard started toward the hotel, moving more slowly now, to keep Leda from falling off. Watt took off running in its wake.
“You really care about her, don’t you?” Nadia asked him, oddly subdued.
Yeah. Watt couldn’t believe it had taken a life-or-death crisis for him to realize it, but he really did.
AVERY
AVERY HAD LEFT the party. She’d returned to the hotel, but once she walked in the enormous entrance, all curved, carved stone and glittering tiles, she’d found that she wasn’t ready to go upstairs. She didn’t want to face her cold, solitary bed; a bed that would never have Atlas in it again. The prospect of a life without him stretched before her, empty and bleak and impossibly, torturously long.
She wandered over to the dramatic windows of the hotel lobby and stood there awhile, just looking out into the endless black of the sky. The stars were so bright here. She wondered when the next round of fireworks would begin.
An arrangement of mood-flowers on a table near her began to glow; stupid things never worked, Avery thought, because they were flashing a hot angry red when all she really felt was hollow. She kept working on her drink without registering what it was. Behind her she occasionally heard voices, the click of heels on the polished floor as people moved through the lobby on the way to their rooms.
Everything that had happened tonight—learning the truth about Calliope, confronting her, and then, worst of all, the way Atlas had told her good-bye, with that aching finality in his voice—had all left Avery strangely empty. Her mind had become a swirling, churning vortex with no bottom. She took another sip of her drink, hoping it would fill the void that threatened to break her in two.
“Avery?”
“Hey,” she said, not even turning at the sound of Cord’s voice. She just kept looking at the dark stretch of water below them, the bridges spanning the space, dotted with lights. Party guests moved back and forth across in a dance of scattered shadows. She wondered how many of them were with the person they loved tonight—and how many of them were alone, like her.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. She knew what he meant. What was she doing standing by herself, in the dim light of the window?
“Where have you been all night?” she asked, since she hadn’t seen much of him.
Cord shrugged. “I only just got here. Guess I’m a little late to the party. It’s a long story,” he added, in answer to her questioning look, “but I was with Brice.”
Avery nodded. They were both silent for a while, the only sound the occasional murmur of hotel guests, and the distant strains of music.
She couldn’t stop thinking about Atlas, about the look on his face when he’d told her that they were through. She wanted to drown that memory out, pound it into oblivion until there was nothing left of it. She’d thought that alcohol would help, but all it had managed to do was sharpen her melancholy. She wondered if she would ever be able to forget.
“Avery, are you okay?” Cord asked. Startled, Avery turned to look at Cord—really look at him.
Driven by some foreign impulse, she rose up to kiss him.
For an instant Cord tensed, startled, not kissing her back. Then one of his hands was cradling her head, and the other was curled around her waist, and they felt scaldingly good on her numb, cold skin. The kiss was rough and insistent, a little frantic.
“Avery. What was that?” Cord finally asked, stepping away.
“I’m sorry …” Avery tried not to feel panicked, but the moment Cord’s lips had left hers, the darkness was back, worse than before—tugging relentlessly at the corners of her mind, dragging her down into its endless, terrible depths.
She wasn’t sure why she’d kissed Cord. Some logical part of her knew that there were plenty of reasons she should stay away. He was her friend, and it would ruin the friendship. And, of course, the biggest reason of all: she loved Atlas. But Atlas no longer wanted her, which was the only reason she was here with Cord, instead of in his arms.
No matter what she did right now, Atlas would still be gone.
She leaned in again, knowing she might regret this, knowing she was playing with fire, just as a message from Leda danced before the backs of her closed eyelids.